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The Psychoneuroimmunology of Stress: Acute and Chronic
The Psychoneuroimmunology of Stress: Acute and Chronic
Research by: Shannon Connell
Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a field of research that deals with the interaction of the central nervous system, the endocrine system, and the immune system, and how these systems can be altered through behavior and stress. The immune, nervous, and endocrine systems communicate to maintain health. PNI is interested in the effects of thoughts and emotion on immune functioning. Stress affects the entire being, nerves, cells, tissues, and systems of the body. Stress if held, can disrupt nervous, endocrine, and immune system functioning resulting in “dis-ease” of body and mind.
Did you Know: The Chronic Fatigue Epidemic is a Symptom of a Dis-eased Zietgeist?
“No man can surpass his own time, for the spirit of his time is also his own spirit” – Georg Hegel
Nearly everyone struggles with being overtired and feeling overworked at some point. For too many of us, life is full of pressure. We are struggling to cope with extraordinary levels, managing constant floods of information and demands, and loosing time for pleasure. A large proportion of our population is feeling tired and stressed out, and wants to know why! The relaxed lifestyle of our ancestors, now for most doesn’t exist. Most are not even aware of how much stress they are under. Over the last century lifestyles have changed drastically, but human bodies have not. We had created technologies to assist us in doing things in less time, such as laundry, dishes, transportation, communication, etc. yet we have less time. The fast paced lifestyle of our current culture has health, prosperity, and productivity consequences. The epidemic of chronic fatigue is perhaps a reflection of how our bodies are not adapted to the increasing demands of the current cultural conditioning and economics.
Agribusiness: Why did humans abandon their job to protect Nature? By: Shannon Connell
Introduction
The unethical practices of food production and its transportation, packaging, and sales are the major contributors to the environmental and health crisis humans now face (Lappe, 2010). This becomes evident as the U.S. Federal government offers only 3% of annual funding to public health interventions in disease prevention and community health education (Schneider, 2006). The depletion of soil, water, and air along with the production of low nutritionally content foods and their consumption are major contributors to environmental pollution and to the current chronic disease epidemic, known as Syndrome X (Monat, Lazarus, & Reevy, 2007). Corporate control of our food supply has not only created a disconnection to Earth and Spirit, but has created a capitalistic overtaking which is inconsiderate of human and environmental well being (Hammers, 2002). There is interconnection between stress and cortisol levels, eating behavior and food choices, human health and environmental health (Epel, Lapidus, McEwen, & Brownell, 2001). Understanding the interconnectedness between all beings and all things is a vital realization for conflict resolution.
Yoga for Stress Reduction and Injury Prevention at Work
Every day, employees cope with various forms of stressors on the job. Increased risk for psychological and physical disorders may be due to work related trends such as working in repetitive and monotonous tasks, performing in a fast-paced environment, and or fearing a layoff during an unstable period in the economy. Psychological stress can be induced by extremely low or high demands on the individual and is a typical situation of many simple and repetitive work situations, in which health problems are common. This has innumerable health and financial implications for both employees and employers. Low job satisfaction and little variation in job task are significantly associated with back and shoulder pain. The majority of headaches people experience are tension headaches resulting from contraction of neck and shoulder muscles. Carpel tunnel and arthritis are associated with the repetitive strain from spending greater amounts of time at a computer. Job stress also can lead to burn out, and mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety.
Did You Know: Cellular Inflammation is a Major Cause of the Increasing Chronic Disease Epidemic?
Before anyone can offer you help in healing inflammation, it’s important to understand the problem. Many diseases and chronic illnesses stem from systematic inflammation. Over time chronic inflammation wears out the immune system and can show up in a myriad of diseases and symptoms.
Mindfulness Practice
Mindfulness theory is the practice of increasing mindfulness and decreasing mindlessness. Mindfulness theory is acceptance towards the ever-changing world, with the goal to increase cognitive flexibility, unconditional self-acceptance, and to decrease self-evaluation, social comparison, and rigidity. It simplifies and honors the interconnection of all perspectives...
Breathing Techniques- Practice
Choose your seat. Find a comfortable upright position. Ground down through both sit bones equally. Set up the connection to the Earth. Stack and create space between each vertebra. Reach up and lengthen through the crown of your head. Bring your attention to your breath.
Allow a couple rolls of the shoulders to release any tension, stress. Then have the shoulders relax and squeeze shoulder blades together to open the heart.
Environmental Consciousness- Research by Shannon Connell
We have come to a point of instability. Our environment is under siege and our human population is increasing at an unsustainable rate (Lappe, 2010). The greatest paradox in the environmental crisis is that it is of human origin (Briggs, 2003). Pharmaceuticals, pest pollutants, industrial chemicals, heavy metals, hormones (Edwards & Meyers, 2008), agricultural wastes, improper waste disposal, transportation (Briggs, 2003), radiation (Page, Petrie, & Wessly, 2006), and animal agriculture (Lappe, 2010) are some of the significant polluters of industrialization, globalization, and human psychological misconception. Animal agriculture is the most significant (Lappe, 2010). Environmental pollutants are responsible for our current climate change (Roberts & Bacon, 1997, Lappe, 2010) and strongly connected to human psychological and physiological “dis-ease”.
The Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP) describes how human beings distort their true nature of being interconnected with all beings and all things (Roberts & Bacon, 1997). It is a paradigm that believes that we are the doers and that the earth was created for our control, just as in man’s misinterpretation of the Book of Genesis, believing that man has dominion over Nature (Roberts & Bacon, 1997). The DSP brings to attention the previous and current beliefs held by humans that there are unlimited resources, that private property is a right, growth is necessary, living in harmony with nature threatens economic growth, and that science will be able to solve all environmental problems (Roberts & Bacon, 1997). Perhaps the greatest human misconception is that we can create or think of anything as permanent.
Man’s perception that the earth is here for us to control, weak environmental legislation (Briggs, 2003), lack of policy, and conflicts of interest between corporate economic growth and environmental protection (Jaffe, Newell, & Stavins, 2004) has led to our increasing environmental health risks, especially in developing countries (Briggs, 2003). There are study correlations between environmental pollution and cardiovascular disease (Brook, Franklin, Cascio, Hong, & Tager, 2011), breast cancer (Wolf & Toniolo, 1995), Lung cancer (Page, Petrie, & Wessely, 2006), birth defects (Brook, et al., 2011), respiratory disease (Frampton, Samet, & Utell, 1991), anxiety, depression, and fear (Page, et al., 2006). One of the greatest challenges to environmental disease theories is that it takes time for a disease to develop and time for critical levels of exposure (Briggs, 2003). There is also the challenge of individual freedom versus policy change (Schneider, 2006). Many people still believe that environmental protection is up to the government and don’t pay attention to how their actions can contribute to environmental pollution or protection (Schneider, 2006). Education, research credibility, self-reflection and policy change are some necessary actions that need to be implemented, and we are running out of time.
Proper Food Combining for Optimal Digestive Health
This rule heads the list as being the worst of the dis-ease-producing habits. If you know anything about the facts of digestion, you’ll realize that there’s no way this combination will ever digest. What about meat and potatoes, hamburgers, sub sandwiches, meat pizzas, macaroni and cheese, hot dogs and all? Take for example the hamburger-the meat is a protein and the bread is a starch. It takes a series of acid digestive juices to digest the protein and a series of alkaline digestive juices to digest the starch. Did you ever burn yourself in chemistry class with acid and were told to apply an alkaline to neutralize the acid!? This same result is what happens to the digestive juices in the stomach when you eat a protein and a starch together. They neutralize themselves and NO DIGESTION IS THE RESULT. If it doesn’t digest properly, it rots in our stomachs! This is when you get the TUMS, feel the acid reflux, have horrible gas, etc… Any soaked nuts, grains and sprouts (all proteins) combine very well with any leafy green produce. The same is true for any protein. Add leafy greens and you have a good combination. Exceptions: Avocados combine well with all starchy vegetables and grains. Legumes combine fairly well with grains.
The digestion of fruits requires hardly any time at all in the mouth and stomach, while starches require most of their digestion time in the mouth and stomach. The fruit sugars are quickly absorbed into the intestines while the starch requires digestion in the mouth and stomach. Starch is the only food that begins to digest in the mouth with the enzyme Ptyalin. If the fruit sugars are held up in the stomach while the digestion of starch continues, the food will rot. Fruits and Starches will always be a problem when combined and eaten together. The rule of thumb, when eating fruit is-eat fruit as a fruit meal. Fruits DO NOT COMBINE with Proteins! Once again, fruit sugars are absorbed directly into the intestines, and the protein requires time digesting in the stomach. If the sugars are held back in the stomach while trying to digest the protein, the food will rot. There is an exception to the rule-Avocados. Avocados combine well with acid and sub acid fruits AND there is enough oil in seeds and nuts (raw and soaked) to prolong the protein digestive gastric juices in the stomach while the fruit sugars of acid fruits and papaya are absorbed into the intestines. BE WISE – Your health is your greatest treasure. When you have it, you have everything. When you don’t, nothing else matters. 3. Fruits DO NOT Combine with Vegetables An easy way to remember this is that FRUITS are CLEANSERS and VEGETABLES ARE BUILDERS. Do NOT combine fruits and vegetables. No way can you build a house and clean it at the same time. Tomatoes are considered a fruit and are an exception to this rule along with apples (in moderation) and papayas.
Melons combine with no other food! They are in the simplest form and require not much digestion time at all in the stomach. If they are held back in the stomach of 104° while digesting anything, they WILL ROT. Put a piece of melon outside in the sun of 80° or 90° and watch it rot before your eyes. Eat melons alone or leave them alone.
No exceptions to this rule!!
When you eat sweets, even fruit, after a meal, you foul up your digestion process and your food rots. Bacteria turn the foods into Alcohols and Vinegars and NO DIGESTION is the result.
The Bottom Line is: The strength of a person lies not only in the foods they eat, but also their persistence in eating foods for optimal digestion and assimilation of nutrients. |